Everyone welcome guest blogger Brandon, who is the baker at Loveletter Cake Shop in NYC. Brandon is bringing us a vegan chocolate on chocolate cake (chocolate cake with chocolate ganache) today. Enjoy, and don’t forget to check out the amazing menu on his website! This recipe comes from Loveletter Cake Shop 30 minPrep Time: 30 minCook Time: Ingredients Instructions
What’s better than chocolate cake? Vegan chocolate cake. OK, maybe it’s not better than classic butter and eggs chocolate cake, but it’s just as good. And anything vegan that’s just as good as its non-vegan counterpart is a monumental achievement indeed.
The key to this chocolate cake recipe—and really, any chocolate cake recipe—is the quality chocolate you use. You can always use your standard Hershey’s cocoa powder, but to achieve a decadent, premium quality chocolate cake that your guests will demand the recipe for, it’s hard to replace a premium Dutch Process cocoa powder like Bensdorp or Valrhona (and no, Hershey’s Special Dark doesn’t count!). Here at Loveletter, we’ve done all the taste tests, and yes, quality does matter. Our testers have chosen chocolate cakes made with imported, Dutch process cocoa time and time again.
You’ll notice in the recipe below that the sugar is added last. I admit this is a bit strange, and I’m not even sure of the chemistry going on behind the scenes here. But I do know this: when I add the sugar the normal way—at the beginning of the recipe along with the other dry ingredients—the cake inevitably sinks in the middle. When I add the sugar at the very end and lightly mix until just combined, the cake rises beautifully straight. The taste and texture of both methods are identical. It is simply a structural improvement when adding the sugar last.
I suspect this has something to do with the sugar dissolving and adding too much weight to the batter when mixed in early. A conventional chocolate cake made with the binding power of eggs will not require this additional step; it will rise just fine regardless of when the sugar is added due to the strength of the egg whites. But vegan cakes need a little more help, and this trick works for us every time.
If you ever notice that your cakes are sinking in the middle, give this nifty technique a try. It isn’t guaranteed to fix your particular issue (there are plenty of reasons why a cake might sink), but if your recipe is lacking structural ingredients or calls for a good deal of sugar, try adding your sugar last.
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